39. We’re Off to Steal the Mirror
thirty-nine
We're Off to Steal the Mirror
Liam
Archer is so sweet. Archer’s actually the sweetest boyfriend.
Boyfriend.
This is really happening. We’re really, genuinely doing this. The boyfriend thing, and also crime.
All the way back to London, he hasn’t said a word that might slow me down. No note of caution, other than to not leave any fingerprints.
I don’t remember a time I had someone in my corner like this. Not since Jem. Not since I was a kid, and he was just a kid too, and life hadn’t come between us.
I’d do anything to go back to that. I guess he would too.
I can’t imagine what he’s feeling—what he’s going through.
What’s Tezcatlipoca like to him? He was terrifying to me.
Is he scary to Jem? Does he interact with him?
Or does he just keep him in a dark box until he needs him?
How long has he had him? And what happens when he gets his mirror back?
It’s almost dark by the time we pull up at ExorSquad headquarters, even though it’s not five yet.
It’s come over stormy and cold, and I’m hoping, the general operation being as shoddy as it is, that Ted and Gerald have knocked off early.
Even so, I figure it’s probably reasonably smart to try the front door, just in case someone’s there.
To my enormous disappointment, it’s unlocked.
I offer Archer a shrug, then make my way upstairs, hoping they’ve just gone home and left the whole place unlocked. But as we ascend the stairs, the light from the first floor glows brighter, and my heart sinks.
Archer catches my arm on the landing, tilting his head back down the stairs.
He’s right. We should probably leave. Come back later.
But I’m not making Jem wait a minute longer than I have to.
I stride in the door, even if it takes Archer a reluctant second to follow me, and I find Ted standing behind his desk, phone pressed against his ear, his eyes already burning into me like I’ve personally offended him.
“What do you mean, ‘Gary’s dead?’” he says. “Already? It’s only been a day! And this is the second one we’ve sent!”
A wave of concern hits me. Poor Gary. Whoever the hell Gary is. Hopefully not a friend of Ted’s.
But Ted says, “We do not guarantee any member of crew will survive the length of the haunting, and there is no refund available should the member die on the job.”
He squints his eyes shut, pushing fingers into his temple so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t cave in.
“Do you think we’re made of men? No. No, you forfeit one-hundred percent of the fee if they die on your property. It’s in the fine print.”
There’s a loud noise from the other side of the phone, what sounds like shouting, then he finishes with, “Fuck you too, Helga.”
Finally, he slams the phone down, then offers me a welcoming, “What the fuck do you want?”
I step up to his desk and put on my boldest voice. “I want to talk to Gerald.”
Ted’s head drops sharply to the side. “Can’t help you. Gerald’s not in there.”
“Sure, he’s not.” I step around the desk, expecting Ted to step in my way like he did with the police, but he doesn’t budge.
He watches me so placidly that I feel as though I must be the one in the wrong.
Like I’m being disrespectful. Like Ted isn’t at all in the habit of protecting Gerald from people trying to nick his stolen goods.
Because of all this, by the time I get to the closed door, I don’t smash it open dramatically like I’d intended to. I only turn the handle slowly, carefully, and step into the darkened room quietly, as keen to get away from Ted’s unerring gaze as I am to get my hands on the mirror.
And it’s not here.
Not where I first saw it, anyway.
I find the light switch, illuminating Gerald’s billion weird objects, wondering for the first time exactly how many of these might have been stolen, and just how many of them might hold some kind of magical occult power.
Archer enters close behind me, dropping a reassuring hand on the small of my back. “I’ll start on this side.”
He probably knows a thousand times as much about these things as I ever could.
“So what is it you’re after?” asks Ted, making me jump with his unnerving proximity.
“I’m after the mirror,” I tell him plainly. “I need Gerald’s mirror.”
Ted’s eyebrows push together, his expression turning quizzical. “What mirror?”
“Don’t even try it, Ted.” I cross the room, pulling open one of the old filing cabinets. “I know it was here a few days ago. I know it’s what the police were after.”
“What police?” he asks serenely.
I send a glare his way before pushing on, rifling through the drawer. “I’m not going to tell them,” I somewhat reassure him. “I don’t have any interest in whatever’s going on here. I just need the mirror to solve this case, and then—”
“And then what?” He folds his arms close against his chest.
And then what indeed? “And then I don’t know. He can have it back, I guess?”
Archer lets out a little laugh, which isn’t particularly helpful. I’m doing my best to be a duplicitous criminal, and he could help me by not finding my attempts cute.
Ted eyes him for a moment, then, “Is he… Are you Archer Gravely?”
“I am,” says Archer, picking up a weird stuffed owl, searching its underside.
Finally, I get enough of a rise out of Ted to make him betray his attempted poker face. “Liam, you cannot bring customers back here!” He runs across the room to snatch the owl from Archer. “Out! At once! Both of you!”
Archer meets his gaze coolly. “I’ve paid you people enough to buy and sell all of this junk.”
Ted slams the owl down on Gerald’s desk, stepping in front of it as if that would be the first object Archer would try to run away with. “Well, it’s not for sale. Now out!”
I move onto the next cabinet, continuing the search from the top down. “It’s a little black mirror,” I explain. “Doesn’t even look like a mirror. It’s…” I remember the picture, then turn my attention to Gerald’s desk, shifting some papers around in case it’s slipped beneath them.
“Hands off, Liam, or I’m calling Gerald.” Ted puts two hands down flat on the desk opposite me, forcing his face in front of mine.
“Please call him.” I meet his gaze steadily. “Please call him right now. Because I’ve been calling him all the way over here, and he isn’t answering, and I need that mirror. Tonight. Right now. Ted, where can I get that mirror?”
“I don’t know a thing about a mirror,” he seethes, and he does it so vehemently I think I might slightly believe him. “But here’s what I do know. You walk out that door right now, and you get back to work, or you’re fired.”
The word hits me like an arctic wind.
Fired.
Again.
It’s not like I didn’t know this was a possibility—as if I hadn’t thought that coming into my workplace and stealing a probably priceless, stolen antique with enormous supernatural powers from my boss might land me there, at the very least.
And what if this doesn’t work out? What if I’ve—we’ve—dreamed this all up somehow.
And even if I get what I’m after, and I give it to Tezcatlipoca, he doesn’t free Jem?
And I end up in the same shitty place I was a few days back, only with no job, and this major connection to the spirit world severed once and for all…
Archer’s hand falls on my shoulder, and he too leans over the desk, making the scene feel like this is some top-secret CIA meeting.
His voice drops appropriately for that sort of situation.
“If you even think about firing Liam for doing the job I’ve hired him to do, I will sue you and Gerald for endangerment, gross negligence, and fraud, and unlike Liam, I’ll tell the police exactly where they can find that mirror. ”
My heart thuds out a grateful rhythm, mixed with fear and the scent of failure, but all dipped in that gorgeous sense of safety I feel whenever I’m close to Archer.
Ted takes a moment, laser-focused on the hand Archer never removes from my shoulder. “Rule six hundred and sixty-seven: don’t fraternise with homeowners on the job.”
I squint back at him. “The rules only went up to six hundred and sixty-six last I checked.”
“It’s new,” he snarls, then turns sharply and walks out the door, flicking off the reception lights as he goes.
I watch him, stunned for a moment. Is he actually going to leave us to do this? Do I get to move ahead with no repercussions or…
I twist back to Archer just as his hand finds my chin, raises my lips, and he kisses me.
Kisses me soft and slow, and carries half my worries away with it.
More than half. When I close my eyes, for that one brief moment, I could be back in his office, on the floor, not a care in the world.
I could be in his arms, in his bed, that Sunday morning wake-up I’ve been dreaming of. Just to be next to him softly.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“I’ve got you,” he says. “From now on, okay?”
This man. This man who is… my fate? How can anything be so true and so beautiful? And how can it come from a god who steals souls in exchange for stolen goods?
Archer doesn’t hold me there for long. He goes right back to searching. Pulls every picture from the wall, looks behind every cupboard, gets down on his knees and peers beneath cabinets.
I adore him for it. The whole time I’m searching by his side, I never once feel like I need to apologise or explain myself. Or tell him again that I’m sorry he’s involved in this mess. He just acts. He just helps. He cares.
But another half hour passes, and we’ve turned the place inside out, scoured over every surface and hidey-hole in the office.
There’s no sign of the mirror.
I know it’s pointless, but I stride out to Ted’s desk anyway, start rifling through his drawers. Archer’s a step behind, once again, going through the filing cabinets with the dodgy contracts in them. I know his heart isn’t in it any more than mine, though.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit, lifting Ted’s keyboard, as though he’d be keeping anything there but his list of passwords. “I don’t know how to find Gerald. I don’t have his address.”
“He’ll be in tomorrow, right?”